A couple of months back I posted about the Black Saint box, which I had just acquired at a bargain price; shortly thereafter, in a post mainly given over to speculation about B's cancelled travel plans, I cleared up a tiny bit of confusion regarding the identity of "Comp. 110", as listed in some sources for the Sound Aspects CD Prag 1984 (Quartet Performance) - although it's not listed that way on the album itself. One of the inclusions in the Black Saint box, Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984, features three of the pieces from the 110 series and it proved straightforward in the end to confirm that the Prague concert did indeed include Comp. 110a, as both the numerical description and the graphic title on the original album had suggested all along*.
Looking at this even briefly, though, got me thinking that I really needed to make a bit of time with the Composition Notes, to look at the 110 series as a whole. Like I say, three of the individual pieces ended up on that brilliant album; the fourth (110b) cannot be found on any album. And even among the three which did get recorded for posterity, it's not as if they are ostensibly linked by any common feature in the writing - or not according to the notes which appear on the back of the album, anyway: largely driven by the composer's desire to showcase his new pulse track structures, Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984 finds subtly different ways to explore that concept in four of its six tracks, but the remaining two are airily summarised as "impressionistic ballade** structures" by B. in the album's notes***, and bear in mind that these two are themselves part of the 110 series. So, whatever else might characterise that as an entity, it's not simply a counterpart to the 108 series. Or probably not, anyway... I figured I'd better try and nail this down if at all possible.
I didn't get very far...
The Black Saint album's notes say only of 110a that it "seeks to emphasize curve sound dynamics... as a basis for extended improvisation", whilst acknowledging that the latter is limited in this version to a "mosaic of changing impressions (and feelings)", which is rather poetic but not necessarily illuminating; besides this, we are told that that the curve sound dynamics# themselves are "positioned in this context for the bass and percussion"... but we know that the latter two instruments are primarily concerned with the secondary territory 108b, so where does that leave us? Even if we assume that the description here refers to the roles played by the bass and drums before the pulse track kicks in, we'd probably have to admit that the notes raise more questions than they answer; and anyway, in practice, I think 108b starts pretty early on and is then in play for almost the whole length of the piece##.
As for 110c and 110d, the very simple description quoted above - "impressionistic ballade structures" - is all that B. says about them, except to add that "both of (them) were written for my wife, Nickie" - something we could have inferred from the graphic titles:
- although even this is not quite straightforward, as we will see presently. (As a matter of fact, not even B's assertion in the album's notes that "(a)ll six works are examined in Composition Notes Book E" is straightforwardly true, as it turns out... we're coming to that.)
Because of the way the studio album is itself presented to the attentive listener - showcasing four subtly different approaches to the pulse track, with two "ballade structures" included on top - it's inevitably the case that 110c and 110d come across as "palate cleansers" between more substantial dishes, positioned in the middle of sides one and two of the original vinyl LP. 110c in particular, which lasts four and half minutes, is actually quite dense and complex in this band's hands, but what are you gonna do? - the composer himself has encouraged us to think of these two pieces as inherently lesser works, or at least lighter works.
So: this is where I was at, before I went to the book for help. Two light ballades, one pulse track structure - or to be more specific, one piece designed to be played against a pulse track - and a conspicuous gap, called 110b, which does not show up anywhere in the recorded canon. Is that even all of them, in this short series?
That last question, at any rate, does have an answer:
- albeit even here, the date of composition proves somewhat problematic. Actually, numerous aspects of the notes for these four pieces proved to be problematic, when I checked them out; generally characterised by gaps in the text, obviously-missing insertions, typos and in some cases actual errors###, the five-volume Composition Notes are still pretty essential for someone like me, but they can be pretty frustrating if you're looking for answers to questions. Here, we have no overall summary of the 110 series as such^, just the title shown above, and the following: three pages of notes on 110a; four pages of notes, plus two pages of notation, for the mystery piece 110b; approximately five pages of notes on 110c; and no notes at all for 110d, just the graphic title and a couple of pages of very brief notation^^.
With his synaesthesia in full effect, B. describes 110a as creating the sensation of "blowing winds and trees (on an island experiencing a rain storm)" - then just a few lines later refers to a "whisper" in the space of the music, which itself is rather confusing, since he has not really made clear that he is discussing different sections of the piece (and who knows... maybe he isn't). He confirms that the piece "was quickly written - as a light visual impression", and then follows this up by saying that it can be performed by any instrumentation, "used by itself or in combination with any of the fifty to sixty works that make up my coordinate series of interchangeable works for extended improvisation"; but he does not explain which pieces comprise that "coordinate series", of which the 110 series is, presumably, a part. Not for the first time, we are told that the piece is dedicated to
- with a blank space, just like that, where someone's name was clearly supposed to be.
The third page of notes does at least clarify the reference to the "whisper" - that is, I think it does: a core element is a five-note phrase "that appears each time in a new (different) key (or in a different voicing)" and which is "offered as a 'hush' in the sound space of the music - something that can be felt (seen) and then disappears". The notes do confirm that the piece was first played by this very quartet - although there is nothing in the notes to indicate that it was specifically intended to showcase the pulse track, rather mentioning almost in passing that "on that occasion the work was coupled with Comp. No. 108d", as if this were a one-off; in practice, we know that the piece became wedded to this type of interpretation, first in the studio, and then live in Prague with the same band; if 108d in the notes is not in itself a typo, B. changed his mind about which pulse track to use with this piece after he debuted it^^^.
Comp. 110b, then, has an intriguing graphic title:
... which itself is actually a little less confusing than is the case for poor old 110c, for which the notes raise so many further questions that I was left wondering if B. might not have been thinking of an entirely different piece when he wrote the notes, and just didn't get round to correcting them. For a piece summarised as a "ballade structure" on the eventual album, the notes on this one are bewilderingly detailed; but by this point I was sufficiently frustrated by this small undertaking that I didn't really make much effort to unpack the notes or to marry them up with what we hear on the record. Part of that is because although this piece is referred to throughout the notes as 110c, it is also said to have been composed in 1982 (!), or at least first performed then (and possibly therefore composed even earlier); and despite the graphic title referencing the missus, we are told the dedicatee of this number, and it wasn't her, but rather the guitarist Spencer Barefield~. Admittedly, writing a piece for someone is not necessarily the same as then dedicating it to them... but it sort of is, right? To be honest this more or less finished me off, as far as researching this post was concerned: like I say, it left me wondering whether B. had had in mind a different piece altogether, or was at best conflating two different pieces when he wrote the notes. Pretty much for this reason alone, I couldn't face the extra work of trying to see to what extent the written description matches the one recording which we have in the canon.
If I achieved anything at all with this bit of digging, then, it was just about highlighting that even geniuses and visionaries may not always be terribly reliable (indeed, they may perhaps be a class of people in whom such qualities might best not be sought at all)... Not that we have four sets of notes even to work from, but the three which we do have, plus the studio album on which three of the four appear, don't really explain what makes the 110 series a coherent series in the first place. But... that's OK. I can live with that. After all, the recordings which we have of those three pieces are still utterly delightful, and if it seems crashingly obvious in retrospect that 110b "should" have been added to the programme, maybe it was felt that it would have disturbed what is otherwise a near-perfect construction: two sides of three pieces each, with two complex pulse track explorations surrounding two lighter ballade structures. In the CD era especially, the album may feel at least ten minutes short on material - but there is no denying how beautifully balanced it is, and it will never ever feel light on content, rewarding just as much careful attention as the friendly experiencer is prepared to give it. Let's just keep hold of that, and move on...
* At the time I wrote that earlier post, I didn't have a physical copy of the Prag CD, but was working on it; I did manage to get one! [The notes don't add much that the partial scans available didn't already make plain, at least in terms of the primary materials used for the concert; I still don't know where Jason G. got the idea that it's "unclear which composition in the Comp. 110 series" was included. As far as I can tell, only one edition (1990) exists of this album - so it's not as if they initially got it wrong and corrected it later.]
** I did have to check this, but B. is using this specific spelling to denote "a piece of music in romantic style (with dramatic elements), typically for piano" - as opposed to the far more common and exoteric ballad, a term which I'm sure needs no explanation from me (though in practice it doubtless means slightly different things to different people). The musical term ballade can itself be defined in different ways, depending on where you look, but they all seem to agree on the piano as a key element (apparently based on the model provided by Chopin). Part of the reason I had to check this is because in modern French, the term balade (single "l") is quite common, but this is regarded as a completely separate word and is in no way specific to the study of the arts.
*** In order to read these at all, I had to take photos and blow them up - the album covers are reproduced so minutely for the 8-CD box set that I basically can't make the text out with my reading glasses, not that I've tried to do so in strong natural light (not always available, sadly...).
# These may or may not be equivalent to (what would now be) language type 9, "legato formings", though I would guess they probably are.
## While I'm at it, the Restructures entry for this album also makes the confusing observation that "108 A & 108 B are not listed on CD documentation". In this case, I don't have the benefit of an original CD for reference - but as far as I can see from scans available online, the pulse tracks were always listed. Jason would not have pulled these notes out of thin air, and must have had some reason for adding them - but I honestly don't know what he meant by them.
### In the case of Book E, for example, pp. 517-8 comprise the first two pages of notes for Comp. 69k, ported in from an earlier volume. This is in the middle of an interview by Ronald Radano, two pages of which are therefore lost to the reader.
^ There is, however, one in the Catalog(ue) of Works: "A set of four short (and relatively easy) structures for extended improvisation. Originally written for my quartet, this material can be used for any context - or positive purpose." For what it's worth, only 110d is described here as a ballad (sic) structure.
^^ Turning the page in search of written notes, the reader finds just further confusion: p. 367 probably is meant to list the opus number 111, followed by some detail - but instead all it contains is the engimatic heading ENVIRONMENT STROLLS (1970-1984), and a two-line summary pasted in from the catalog(ue) of works (where the exact same entry appears, though here it is at least confirmed to be Comp. 111). Some stuff is definitely missing from this fifth volume in particular.
^^^ Later versions of 110a in Birmingham (1985) or with Oxley and Roidinger (1989) also collage the piece with 108b.
~ A. Spencer Barefield, to give him his full(er) name, is more closely associated with Roscoe Mitchell - and so are the other musicians present for (what is stated to be) the premiere performance of 110c, if that is indeed what it was: they are listed in the notes as Toni Tabel (!) and Jaribu, but we would know them as Tani Tabbal and Jaribu Shahid. (Goodness knows what was going on with the copy editing at this point.)
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